Venetucci Farm

Venetucci Farm begins to come back to life this week. This Farm, the oldest Farm in the Pikes Peak region--dating back to 1862--is now the last great Farm in our area. From 1936 until 2004, the Farm thrived through the unbelievable efforts of Nick and Bambi Venetucci. For nearly 50 years. Nick and Bambi gave away free pumpkins to local school children, totaling literally millions of pumpkins...

An icon for his time, Nick Venetucci passed away at age 93 in September, 2004. He was one of the most brilliant and generous men our community has ever known. More about Nick in later posts...



Now it's our turn to keep his legacy going. Venetucci Farm has been placed in a charitable trust at Pikes Peak Community Foundation (ppcf.org), and will be preserved forever as a working farm that once again gives free pumpkins to kids.



Two important things this week: the arrival of ten piglets born last night! Nick Venetucci historically raised excellent hogs at Venetucci Farm, and thanks to a generous local rancher, two Tamworth sows and a boar arrived at the Farm last week. Waiting until the trailer journey from Indiana was over, one of the sows decided that March 7 would be a good time to reestablish hogs as a vital force at Venetucci...("Pumpkin" on the right gave birth last night; "Spice" on the left, is due in about three weeks...we named the boar "Harley"...he definitely motors around his pen, complete with unmuffled sound effects!)



Meanwhile, draft horses made their return to the Farm. For years, Nick Venetucci worked with two wonderful draft horses named Babe and Bess. This week, led by master driver Chuck Baley from Pagosa Springs, eight beautiful Suffolk draft horses led four volunteer teamsters through their paces in Chuck's intensive workshop.



Our goal is to give away thousands of pumpkins this fall to local schoolkids...follow our journey through the year on our new blog...

Thanks for reading~~posted by Michael Hannigan